“Why—­” he said, stopping short.

“Yes.  It’s real silly of them not to come and eat before everything is spoilt,” said Mrs. Bilton bustling up, who had stayed behind to give an order to Li Koo.  And she went to the edge of the verandah and shaded her eyes and called, “Gurls!  Gurls!  I guess you can do all that talking better after lunch.”

He then saw that down at the bottom of the garden, in the most private place as regards being overheard, partly concealed by some arum lilies that grew immensely there like splendid weeds, stood the twins facing each other.

“Better leave them alone,” he said quickly.  “They’ll come when they’re ready.  There’s nothing like getting through with one’s talking right away, Mrs. Bilton.  Besides,” he went on still more quickly for she plainly didn’t agree with him and was preparing to sally out into the sun and fetch them in, “you and I don’t often get a chance of a quiet chat together—­”

And this, combined with the resolute way he was holding her chair ready for her, brought Mrs. Bilton back under the awning again.

She was flattered.  Mr. Twist had not yet spoken to her in quite that tone.  He had always been the gentleman, but never yet the eager gentleman.  Now he was unmistakably both.

She came back and sat down, and so with a sigh of thankfulness immediately did he, for here was an unexpected respite,—­while Mrs. Bilton talked he could think.  Fortunately she never noticed if one wasn’t listening.  For the first time since he had known her he gave himself up willingly to the great broad stream that at once started flowing over him, on this occasion with something of the comfort of warm water, and he was very glad indeed that anyhow that day she wasn’t gagged.

While he ate, he kept on furtively looking down the garden at the two figures facing each other by the arum lilies.  Whenever Mrs. Bilton remembered them and wanted to call them in, as she did at the different stages, of the meal,—­at the salad, at the pudding—­he stopped her.  She became more and more pleased by his evident determination to lunch alone with her, for after all one remains female to the end, and her conversation took on a gradual tinge of Mr. Bilton’s views about second marriages.  They had been liberal views; for Mr. Bilton, she said, had had no post-mortem pettiness about him, but they were lost on Mr. Twist, whose thoughts were so painfully preoccupied by first marriage.

The conclusions he came to during that trying meal while Mrs. Bilton talked, were that he would propose first to Anna-Rose, she being the eldest and such a course being accordingly natural, and, if she refused, proceed at once to propose to Anna-Felicitas.  But before proceeding to Anna-Felicitas, a course he regarded with peculiar misgiving, he would very earnestly explain to Anna-Rose the seriousness of the situation and the necessity, the urgency, the sanity of her marrying him.  These proposals would be